Cargo covers or blankets are commonly used to cover cargo loaded on a truck, plane, or ship in order to insulate the cargo and maintain it at a desired temperature. One type of cargo often requiring a cover is canned or bottled beverages that must remain chilled during shipment. This type of cargo is commonly shipped in cargo trailers hauled by a truck. The cargo cover is placed over the top exposed surface of the cargo load.
Because of the prohibitive costs of using a refrigeration unit for most cargo, cargo containers such as cargo trailers maintain the temperature of the cargo by use of an insulated cargo space (for example insulated sidewalls, ceiling and flooring) in combination with a cargo blanket. For beverages such as beer, it is undesirable for the beer to freeze or to heat beyond an upper temperature limit. Thus, it is critical that the cargo cover used be capable of providing adequate insulation to maintain the cargo within the desired temperature range. Of course, depending upon the season in which the cargo is shipped, the cargo may be exposed to various temperature extremes, and the cargo cover should have known insulative properties that protect the cargo from freezing and from reaching upper temperature limits.
These cargo blankets are constructed of heavy cotton panels with vinyl covers. These cargo covers are quite heavy, and are also quite difficult to deploy over the cargo load. Because of the weight of the covers, multiple smaller covers must be typically used to cover the entire load. Also, these cargo blankets must be deployed from the rear of the trailer (the end closest to the truck). If a trailer is first fully loaded, the user must often times crawl over the loaded cargo and therefore work in a very constrained space to deploy the cargo blankets. Alternatively, if the cargo trailer is incrementally loaded, a first cargo blanket is deployed over the loaded cargo, and then loading of the trailer is continued with incremental loads causing the user to separately deploy subsequent cargo blankets, one at a time. With either method of loading the cargo, multiple cargo blankets must be used and a considerable amount of physical effort is required to deploy the blankets.